The chain reported Thursday that admissions revenues per screen increased by 33% and adjusted EBITDA more than doubled at the 44 locations that have been converted to fully reclining seats.
As a result, the company’s board increased its capital expenditures by approximately $39 million this year to accelerate the rollout of its on-going “customer experience” initiatives — including the larger reclining seats, its McGuffin cocktail bars and Imax screens.
4 comments:
I "like" how this article makes no mention of the fact that this is mostly a result of going public. AMC's IPO was only in December last year (and if I am remembering correctly) all this revamping was a planned part of the IPO. The money they are spending to do this is part of the 340,000,000 (340 million) they raised during the first few days of their IPO. AMC is doing very well and this article is trying to show that, but it is leaving out one the big pieces as to why. Also as a publicly owned company it seems misleading to say that it was purchased by the Wanda Group in 2012 even if they still own the vast majority.
Source - I read their prospectus in December.
It's about damn time! I've been going to AMC theatres since I was a wee lad and, for the most part, have never had serious issues with them at all. Except for their ridiculous prices. After going to another local theatre of mine and this theatre had both a bar and reclining seats for around the same price as an AMC ticket, I thought finally that something was not right with this picture, AMC needs to step up their game. And here they go! Reclining seats for all! It is interesting that this is partly the result of their company going public and encountering much more money, thus leaving them the freedom to make such expenditures, as Isaac points out. I only hope that AMC continues to expand their experience for the betterment of their viewers.
I wish the article mentioned whether there were any accompanying ticket price hikes that accompanied these improvements. While I would be mildly more inclined to get robbed blind if I have a mildly more comfortable seat in which to sit, it's a little disingenuous of them to claim that their revenue went up by 33% if ticket sales actually went down but they jacked the prices up 50-75%. I kind of wish movie theaters had tiers of pricing like theatre-theaters do, mostly because I never end up getting around to watching movies if I don't catch them in theaters, but we simply can't afford the cost of two tickets, even with my giant purse that may or may not be filled to the brim with snacks and a bag of popcorn...
Also, what do we as a generally live-performance-based industry think about film taking a larger, more "luxury" share of the market? In the past 75 or more years, live theatre has grown to be the "luxury" performance market, and movies something for the average person to go to with some frequency. If movies start to become this luxurious night out meant for anniversaries or birthdays that end in 0, where does the live performance industry go? Diplomats, heiresses and royalty?
I think that is an amazing plan. Honestly, ticket sales are expensive as they are and so it's already an expense to go see the movies. Any price increase in tickets I don't think will deter viewers if they really want to see a movie. And reclining seats is already a trend among Smaller Chain movie theaters. I saw a new indie film in an old restored movie theatre in San Diego and the fully reclinable seats COMPLETELY changed my outlook on the theatre. It made the whole experience 100 times cooler and more comfortable.
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